Many bodily injuries, particularly those which are commonly referred to under the broad designation of contusions, are painful and cause substantial discomfort to the injured person due to the tissue damage and the resulting hemorrhaging of blood beneath the skin, which in turn causes substantial swelling. Swelling causes the injury to be more painful and disabling. It has long been recognized that, if the swelling can be minimized, then the pain and discomfort can be minimized or eliminated. For this purpose, it has been conventional practice to apply ice packs or similar devices to the injured portion of the body as soon as possible after the injury occurs in an attempt to minimize swelling. This technique, however, is conveniently usable only under specific situations and circumstances. For example, ice packs and the like can be conveniently applied only to certain types of injuries, and use of such ice packs normally does not permit application of proper compression on and around the injured area so as to achieve the best possible minimization of swelling. Further, when an ice pack is applied, the injured person has little freedom of movement.
In an attempt to provide an improved "compress" which would be more convenient to utilize than ice packs, there have been developed cold compresses which involve various chemicals or gels confined within a pouch, which pouch can allegedly be stored in a freezer at temperatures below freezing, with the pouch then being removable from the freezer for application to the injured portion of the body. While these known compresses do exhibit some satisfactory performance features, nevertheless most of these known compresses have possessed features which have made their use or handling less than optimum. For example, with some of these known compresses, the gel becomes hard and rigid when frozen and thus does not conform to the body portion so as to provide optimum beneficial effect. In other known compresses the gel remains relatively flowable when the compress is being handled, shipped or stored at above freezing temperatures, and hence the packaging and handling of such compresses, particularly by the manufacturer and the selling merchants, is more difficult. Still another problem with many of the known compresses, particularly after being stored at below freezing temperatures, is the difficulty of handling the compress and the possibility of causing frostbite to the user's hand. To overcome this latter deficiency, others have proposed attaching an insulator to the outside of the package containing the compress or other thermal pack, but this arrangement substantially complicates and increases the cost of manufacture, and can often result in use of the pack or compress without the insulator thereon.
Reference is made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,885,403, 3,874,504 and 3,780,537 which disclose various known thermal packs, some of which allegedly are usable as cold compresses and can be frozen, which structures possess some of the disadvantages noted above.
Accordingly, the present invention relates to an improved cold compress adapted for use with injuries of the above type. More specifically, this invention relates to an improved cold compress which can be quickly and easily applied to an injured portion of the body, such as a body part which has suffered a contusion, to minimize subsequent swelling of the body in the region of the injury. The cold compress not only permits proper compression on the injured body portion, but also permits cooling of the injured body portion due to refrigeration. This cold compress is preferably stored in a freezer, such as a conventional home freezer, at a temperature below freezing (that is, below 32.degree. F.) so as to permit super cooling of the compress. Even at this subfreezing temperature, however, the compress still remains pliable and can be readily conformed to the injured body portion to permit more effective cooling thereof. At the same time, the compress has an insulator pad permanently secured to one side thereof, which insulated side is positioned outermost so as to permit convenient gripping and pressing thereof by the user's hand. This improved compress can thus be easily stored in a freezer and then quickly removed for direct application to an injured body portion so as to greatly minimize subsequent swelling and reduce pain, with the compress then being reusable merely by restoring same in the freezer for subsequent use.
In addition, the improved compress is clean and nontoxic, and is formed substantially as a thin rectangular pad structure packaged within a flexible envelope to facilitate the handling and storing thereof. At the same time, this compress retains its general padlike configuration and does not flow or run, even when stored at conventional room temperature.
The improved cold compress of this invention comprises a solid but pliable pad structure which incorporates therein a self-supporting gellike material. The gellike material remains solid but pliable when stored either at room temperatures or at subfreezing temperatures. The pad structure has a thickness of about 7/16ths inch, a width of about 4 inches, and a length of about 9 inches. This pad structure in turn is sealed within an envelope preferably formed from a thin transparent plastic material which closely confines the pad structure, with the plastic material being such as to resist puncturing or tearing thereof while at the same time remaining flexible even when at subfreezing temperatures.
The pad structure of the improved cold compress is formed primarily by a solid gel pad, the latter being formed by gelling a polyvinyl alcohol solution formed by using approximately 12.5 parts of polyvinyl alcohol per 100 parts of water, with this solution also having added thereto about 30 parts of a freezing point depressant, preferably propylene glycol. A thin pad of polyurethane foam is dipped in the solution, and is thereafter dipped in a reactive gelling agent solution, such as an aqueous borax solution, to form a gel. The gel effectively penetrates the polyurethane foam, whereupon the latter functions as a central core or carrier for providing increased strength and continuity, and the gel also effectively forms thin gel layers on the exterior surfaces of the foam pad. After the solid gel pad is effectively gelled, then a thin porous or cellular insulator pad (such as polypropylene or polyethylene pad) is positioned thereon. The insulator pad reacts with the adjacent gel layer on the gel pad and absorbs the excess moisture therefrom, and some of the gel tends to flow into and solidify within the porous openings or cells of the insulator pad so that the latter effectively becomes fixedly secured to the gel pad. The thus-formed pad structure is then initially wrapped with a thin transparent plastic film solely to facilitate the subsequent handling of the pad structure and to facilitate the sliding of the pad structure into the outer envelope.
The resulting cold compress, as described above, and specifically the gel pad, remains in a substantially soft and pliable but solid condition at all times, both at conventional room temperature and at subfreezing temperature, such as from less than 0.degree. F. to about 150.degree. F. Further, the gel pad does not undergo any significant flow or sag, even when stored in a hanging or vertical condition at room temperature.
Other objects and purposes of the invention will be apparent after reading the following specification and inspecting the accompanying drawings.